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Giygas
Giygas (ギーグ Gīgu) is a fictional character in the 1989 video game Mother and the 1995 video game EarthBound. Known as both the "Embodiment of Evil" and the "Universal Cosmic Destroyer," Giygas is an evil alien who intends to sentence all of reality to the horror of infinite darkness. With an army of Starmen, UFOs, and other deadly war machines, Giygas also used his immense power to influence the evil parts of the Earth's beings to assist him, like Pokey Minch for example. His appearance in EarthBound is often credited as visually one of the most disturbing antagonists in video game history. In Mother In Mother, Giygas is raised by Maria, a woman abducted along with her husband George from Earth by Giygas' alien race in 1907. George studied the aliens' PSI powers without permission, and escaped back to Earth. Once he matured, Giygas was tasked by his people to make sure that PSI never spread onto Earth. However, Giygas didn't want to betray those who raised him, particularly his beloved Maria. In the end, he forced himself to detach from Maria, and began preparations for the aliens' invasion. Eighty years later, he starts the invasion, and is eventually confronted by the great-grandson of Maria and George, Ninten, and his companions. By singing a song once known by Maria and Giygas, the loving memories he had tried so hard to suppress weaken him. Giygas eventually surrenders, but promises revenge upon Ninten someday, before flying away in his spacecraft. In EarthBound In EarthBound, Giygas returns as the primary antagonist, though he vastly differs from his appearance in Mother. Giygas gains such tremendous evil power that it destroys his entire being, including his mind, henceforth losing all semblance of life. As such, Giygas manifests as what can only be described as pure evil; in Pokey Minch's words, "he is the Evil Power." Due to the loss of his mind, Giygas becomes irrational, and incapable of thought; in the final battle, Pokey points out that Giygas isn't aware of himself, or what he is doing, referring to him as "an all-mighty idiot." This is highly reminiscent of the Lovecraftian god Azathoth, who is referred to as the "Blind Idiot God." Now wielding vast cosmic power (and uncontrollably using it), Giygas becomes a threat to the existence of the universe. Ten years after the beginning of EarthBound, Giygas initiates the apocalypse. The only known being who manages to escape destruction is an alien insectoid named Buzz Buzz, who travels back in time ten years and warns Ness of the impending catastrophe. In Ness' present-day, Giygas' influence is seen throughout the Earth, mainly in the form of enemies that Ness encounters. Now existing as the whole of evil power in the universe, Giygas is able to manipulate the evil in the minds of living beings, both human and animal, and he can apparently manipulate even the forms of inanimate objects. In the final battle, Giygas is held within the Devil's Machine, an eyeball-like machine (with an image of Ness' face inside) created to contain Giygas' tremendous power. During the battle, Pokey shuts it off, causing all of Giygas' power to be unleashed; an event that creates a chaotic, bizarre dimension all around them in which only Giygas and the five children remained trapped in darkness. His attacks are random and incomprehensible, and his speech is erratic and mindless. He is eventually defeated after Paula calls out to the people of the Earth to pray (including the player), and the combined prayers reach Giygas and exploit his weakness, which turns out to be human emotions (possibly due to his loss of Maria). He fades into nothingness, and his apocalyptic future is erased. Trivia * Shigesato Itoi has stated that his inspiration for Giygas' speech in EarthBound came from a traumatic childhood experience where he mistakenly walked into an adult movie theater and caught a glimpse of a rape scene in the 1957 film The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty (憲兵とバラバラ死美人 Kenpei to Barabara Shibijin However, there actually was no rape scene on this move, but a murder scene. But Itoi stated that the memory was fuzzy at best. Category: Characters Category: EarthBound Category: Mother Category: PSI